She nodded slowly, hands folded primly. “Sounds about right. Can’t be afraid to upset the apple cart when you’re in my position.”
Yeah, she’d sure upset mine.
CHAPTER
17
Charlie
Game five brought another check in the W column, and Connor and I found ourselves making some lame excuse to leave the Public early to meet back up at a park. This time there were no streetlights above us or fast food between us, only the dark of his truck as we overlooked old sawmills on the water. The calming sound of the quiet rushing water and the pretty sight of the moon reflecting off the canal escaped me. It became white noise with all of my concentration on Connor.
“This is becoming a pattern,” I said in between breathy pants. The way he flicked his tongue against my ear made me sound like a sex-crazed woman. And we still had our clothes on—for the most part.
He kissed my neck and fiddled with the back of my bra. “I don’t mind.”
“I do.” I pressed my palms against his bare chest to shove away from him. I couldn’t even appreciate his body with no light. “I may be from Georgia, but I don’t find a dirty pickup truck swoon-worthy.”
He huffed, his hands flying out at his sides as if what I was asking for was so difficult. “What do you want?”
“I don’t know. A little romance, at least.” I slid off his lap and grabbed my shirt to hold it up in front of me. “I know this . . . whatever you want to call it, an illicit affair—”
“An illicit affair. Are we living in some kind of soap opera?” He laughed, and I punched his arm.
“When we sneak around, that’s what it feels like.” Dirty. Cheap. I wasn’t asking for champagne or diamonds or anything life-altering. Just something that felt more . . . more. “Am I to believe you make all your women suffer with the gearshift in their backs?”
He sighed heavily and put his shirt back on, shifting in his seat. If he was as worked up as I was, I guessed it wasn’t easy to do, but this conversation needed to be had. I sat next to him, waiting for his answer.
I waited a long damn time.
“First of all, I don’t have a lot of women. It’s not like I’m out with different women every night.”
“That’s nice of you,” I said, a little haughtier than I’d meant it to be.
He ran his hand over his head a couple of times. “I don’t mean for this to happen. It just does.”
“When you found me by the bathroom tonight and said, ‘Meet me at Mill Ruins Park in twenty minutes,’ what did you think was gonna happen?”
He growled and threw his hands up. “I don’t know, Charlie. I was looking at you, and you said some stupidly cute saying and I thought, Goddamn, I want to kiss that girl. That’s as far as I’d planned.”
I stared pointedly at him before tossing my shirt over my head, hurrying to cover up my old-lady bra.
“Sorry,” he apologized insincerely, and I crossed my arms. He was infuriating. Sometimes sweet, but always infuriating.
“If it ain’t ants, it’s fleas.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what I said to Ken. If it ain’t ants, it’s fleas.”
“Yeah. What does that mean?”
“If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”
He reached for me, extending a physical olive branch when he curled his index finger around mine.
“You think I sound funny, but I think you sound funny. Y’all up here are ‘ooohhhhh goooosh.’ ” I pulled my vowels, overenunciating each one. “ ‘You betcha like this hotdish and pop up north in Fargo.’ ”
His laugh bellowed around us, the whites of his teeth on full display. A rare sight. “Hey, now. We don’t sound like that at all.”
I got caught up in giggling with him. “Totally. Y’all sound like you’re from a different country. But, sure, I have an accent.” With his arm around me, we became quiet, the faint sound of water rushing below us. A question nagged at the back of my mind, and I couldn’t let it go. “Are you gonna tell me about those other women?”
“We were having such a good moment.”
I ignored his attempt to throw me off the scent. “And?”
“What difference does it make?”
“What are you hidin’?”
“Nothing. Why are you so pushy?”
“Why are you so cagey?”
He lifted his arm from my shoulders, putting distance between us. “What do you want to hear? That I go home alone every night, holed up like a monk? Would that make you feel better?”
I frowned. There were plenty of ways to interpret those words, to insinuate meaning into his tone, but I took them at face value. “I’m not dumb or a prude. Forgive me for wantin’ to know a little bit about your personal life. I thought I was owed that much since not twenty minutes ago you were moanin’ against my collarbone about how soft my skin is and how good I smell.”
With his elbow against the window, he rubbed his hand over his mouth.
“And it’s perfume, by the way. I keep it in my office to spritz on. For you,” I snapped, wanting him to hear how I tried, how I put myself out there. Yet here he was, acting like a lackadaisical shithead. I told him so.
“No need to call names,” he said, and I swore if he made one more sound of impatience, I’d slap him. “The woman who called me during game night, Kim, you asked me about her that night. Remember?”
I nodded. Of course I remembered. It had lit some kind of spark inside me. Made me realize I wanted him for more than a verbal sparring partner.
“I met her a few months ago. Her kid needed tutoring.”
“Oh, Jesus,” I said, dropping my head into my hands.
“Hey. Jesus has got nothing to do with this,” he said, a smile in his voice.
“That’s for sure.” My imagination raced with all kinds of images of how “tutoring” could go. “So, what, you went to her house and made the kid fill out worksheets while you banged his mom?”
He jerked his head back. “Bang? I don’t bang. And I have some professional ethics. I waited until after the kid’s sessions were done.”
“And then you banged her?”
“Stop saying bang, will you?”
“For someone who bangs moms he meets while tutorin’ children, you’re awful shy about admittin’ what you’re doing.”
He pried my hands from where they were crossed on my arms and pulled them to him, bringing our faces a few inches apart. It was the first time I could see his eyes since I’d stepped into his truck tonight, and they danced into my own.
“I don’t have a problem admitting what I do. But understand me when I say I don’t do anything frivolously. I was open with everyone I’ve been with, clear about what we each wanted. The last time I spoke to Kim was when I got home that night. I didn’t think it was fair to her to continue what we had after I’d kissed you.”
His tumble of honesty left me speechless. I’d figured he didn’t talk about his personal life to anyone because he didn’t particularly care, but it was the opposite. I should’ve known.
Connor didn’t do anything lightly. And with that revelation, a wave of unease hit me. If he was clear with those other women, why wasn’t he with me? What made me different? Why had we been hanging in this limbo for the past three weeks?
He dropped his head for a moment. “Do you want to go somewhere with me on Sunday?”
“Yeah.”
He chuckled. “You answered quick.” He kissed my cheek sweetly. “I’ll pick you up at three.”
That night, I locked myself in the bathroom for a soak, during which I ran through every short-lived relationship of my life. They were few and far between, and I’d never felt really good about myself with any of those guys. For one reason or another, I had trouble being myself. It went one of two ways: either they wanted a woman with a more traditional job with regular hours that didn’t involve football, or they wanted a guy’s girl, totally cool with beer and wings every day while we talked shop end
lessly.
I didn’t want to be either of those women. I wanted to be me.
And Connor allowed me to do that, potty mouth and all.
Yet when films rolled around the next morning and he basically ignored me yet again, I wondered what we were actually doing. I wasn’t as experienced as he was in relationships, maybe sexually too. But I didn’t want to think about that. I couldn’t think about that. My innate competitiveness made me a jealous person.
That aside, I considered whether I was setting myself up to be hurt. I wasn’t necessarily looking for him to pass a note to me that asked if I’d be his girlfriend, but I had hoped for something. Especially since he’d said he was open with the other women before. I waited for him to be that way with me, but getting anything from him was like pulling teeth. I wondered if I was so starved for attention from a man that I was shortchanging myself. That I was settling for less.
’Cause I sure as shit wasn’t a settler.
I was a fighter.
It just so happened that I delighted in fighting with Connor.
• • •
SUNDAY ARRIVED before I had any answers to my questions, and Sonja happened to be home when he came to pick me up. She answered the door just as I reached the bottom of the steps, able to see her brows raise to her hairline.
“Connor? What are you doing here?”
He looked past her shoulder to me, fumbling for an answer. “Oh, we’re running out for a bit.”
Sonja quirked her mouth at me, and I pretended I didn’t see the flicker of understanding in her eyes.
“Okay,” she said, backing away from the door. “I guess I’ll see you later?”
“Yeah, won’t be gone long.” I smiled and closed the door on her knowing grin and cocked head.
“I hope you dressed warmly,” Connor said once we were on the road. “We’re going to be outside.”
“What are we talkin’ here? Ice fishin’?”
He nodded, and terror must’ve been written on my face because he backtracked. “I’m kidding. We’re going to a soccer game. You want to stop for something warm to drink first?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
I fought his fingers for control of the radio, and ended up losing to some ridiculous punk station with blaring drums. “These songs all sound the same,” I said. “How can you listen to it?”
“Same could be said about your music choices.” He pulled into a Caribou Coffee, the same one where he almost ran me over.
“Back to the scene of the crime?”
“Hey,” he said, lining up at the drive-thru, “I didn’t actually hit you.”
“No, but I was seconds away from murdering you.”
He tipped his head to me. “You’d never.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
He wrapped his hand around me, his fingers warm and tight at the nape of my neck. A challenge. I put my own hand just under his jaw, the base of my palm on his Adam’s apple. I squeezed, our eyes boring into one another. I felt him swallow; his lips parted slightly.
“You’d make one good-lookin’ corpse,” I said, and he grinned. I thought myself victorious for making him break first.
“What do you want?”
I didn’t even have to think. “Medium dark chocolate mocha latte, two percent, extra whip with mocha drizzle, hold the lid.”
His eyes glazed over. “What?”
“Medium dark chocolate mocha latte—you know what? Never mind. I’ll order.” I unbuckled my seat belt and leaned over him to stick my head out the window, my body practically draped over his. He didn’t move an inch, made no room for me, and I swear I saw him smirk out of the corner of my eye as I ordered. “What do you want?” I asked him.
“Large black coffee.”
“You would,” I said, and relayed his order to the disconnected voice at the speaker. “Can we also have two oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, please?”
The voice told us to pull around, and I shuffled back into place, reaching into my bag for my wallet. He pushed my hand away, refusing the payment. “Does this qualify as a date if you pay?” I asked, and he sniffed.
“I don’t think a drive-thru ever qualifies as a date.”
I tried not to analyze that statement and got my seat belt back in order just in time to see Nate at the window. I was sure his shocked expression mimicked ours.
“Coach?” he said, slowly.
“Yeah,” Connor and I both answered, and I shut my eyes, mortification coursing through my body. The possibility of being caught with my offensive coordinator had flitted through my mind from time to time, but it was mostly a vague idea. The complicated nature of our relationship had been in the forefront of my mind. Until now.
Connor paid for our drinks and handed me the cookies. “Thanks, Nate. See you tomorrow,” he said, and drove off before I could come up with any words to say to my quarterback.
“Dear Lord in heaven,” I said, sinking down. “Why have you forsaken me?”
“All right over there?” he asked, one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding his coffee.
“Am I all right?” I whipped my head to him. “No. Nate Anderson just saw us together.”
“Yep.”
“Why are you not freakin’ out?”
“What is there to freak out about?” He sipped his coffee leisurely.
“We’re in a car together.”
“Correct observation.”
“Here’s another observation,” I said, sitting up straight, flicking his ear. He threw me a glare before tracking his attention back to the road. “We coach together. What would people think if they heard about us?”
“If they heard we were in a car together, getting coffee? Scandalous.” He took another long sip, and I wanted to knock the cup out of his hand.
“Don’t be obtuse.”
“Don’t be dramatic. We’re adults.”
I grumbled, “Is condescension your normal disposition, or do you try to be this way?”
“I think you’re blowing this way out of proportion.”
“I’m not. Certain people would love, love to hear a juicy piece of gossip about me. I have enough trouble keepin’ the wolves at bay, they’d use whatever this is against me. For sure.”
“Whatever this is? We’re getting coffee and going to a soccer game, that’s what this is.”
“We’ve also dry-humped right where you’re sittin’.”
He eyed me sternly. “Dry-hump, bang. . . you have the vocabulary of a thirteen-year-old boy.”
“I’m tryin’ to be serious with you right now. Don’t make jokes!”
“I’m being serious too. There is no rule at school about fraternizing. That being said, I don’t plan on blabbing around to anyone about what we do, coffee or no coffee.” He lifted my drink from where it sat in the cup holder. “Your disgusting coffee is getting cold. Maybe you could warm it up with those laser eyes.”
I took it from him. “Rude.”
I stuffed half a cookie in my mouth, the sugar softening me up again. I tilted the rest of it up to him, silently offering to share.
“I’m not big on chocolate,” he said.
“Ah. That’s why you’re the way you are.”
A slow grin spread across his face. “Hasn’t helped you much either.”
CHAPTER
18
Connor
I parked the car and waited for Charlie to pack away her second cookie, her cheeks puffing out like a chipmunk’s. I resisted laughing at her and climbed out, yanking my hat farther down on my head. It was a sunny afternoon, but that didn’t help the chill that seeped through my coat. Charlie immediately sidled up to me, her ridiculous coffee between her hands like a cavewoman with fire.
“Warm enough?”
She swallowed down a healthy gulp before saying, “It’s colder than a witch’s tit.”
I barked out a laugh. “You’re familiar with witches’ tits?”
“I have been called one before.” There
was no bitterness in her voice, like she was used to being called names. I’m sure witch was on the nicer side of what she’d experienced.
“Some people are assholes,” I said.
“Yeah.” She smiled up at me. “Takes one to know one.”
I curled my arm around her, jostling her against me.
“Hey! Hey! Don’t spill my latte.”
I let go and she took a drink, the mountain of whipped cream halfway melted. A bit of it stuck to the corner of her mouth when she pulled the cup away. I wiped it off with my knuckle, and the tip of her tongue darted out, licking the spot just after. The temptation to kiss her there was almost too much to ignore, but a whistle sounded behind me and shook me from my impulse.
“Come on,” I said, moving my hand to her back. She wore a long black parka, covering up what I knew were her usual sporty clothes, fitted to her body like they were made for her. That was the bad part about living up north: the weather forced women to wear layers upon layers to stay warm. On the flip side, it was like unwrapping a present, and from the small glimpses I’d seen of Charlie’s body in the weight room, I knew she had a pretty good gift under there.
“Connor!” I raised my head, searching for where my mom’s voice came from. I spotted her on the sideline of the soccer field. I waved and she grinned, watching Charlie and me make our way to her. She couldn’t have looked happier, her eyes, the same color as mine, toggling back and forth between us.
“Hey, Mom.”
She reached up and kissed my cheek. “Hiya, Monkey.”
I was a thirty-one-year-old man who lived on his own and benched 225, yet my mother still called me Monkey. Charlie snickered. I paid her no mind.
“Well, look here,” Mom said, practically dancing in place as she ran her gaze over Charlie.
“This is—”
“Charlie, I know.” Mom clapped her hands once, her mouth opening wide. “The infamous Charlie Gibb. It’s nice to meet you.” She hugged her immediately, patting her back. “I’ve been to all of your games.”
“Hi, Mrs. McGuire. Nice to meet you.” Charlie peered at me, her arms reluctantly wrapping about my mother, one hand holding her drink away to keep it from spilling.
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